Coalescence

At the risk of opening a philosophical debate, when does it become an artificial or wholly emulated experience? The Analogue line is a very close recreation because it's an original cart with an original controller piped through emulated hardware. Plugging a controller and cart into the Remix to leverage processing power of a computer, or playing said games through the cloud just sounds like a step too far removed to get the genuine classic experience. I'm sure this will work for some people though it's hugely risky to spread themselves out so thin when the Polymega proper hasn't had much time to grow. But for me it's either the fpga experience of something like my Super NT or original hardware. Anything past that I'd just as soon load up RetroArch.

Still one of my most beloved childhood carts. I wish the box would have survived, but my mom cleared out all the cardboard game boxes one day when I was at school. I'll never forgive the recycling programs for giving her the idea.

Also just thirding the Japanese cart comment. IIRC, the only Japanese text is in the menus to change the button settings.

It's not really a transition in the sense that the original gameplay was successfully migrated to 3D. Prime is a great series, but it's a wholly different take on Metroid. The same can't be said for Mario or Zelda who preserved the spirit of each game well. Zelda wins by having the benefit of Mario going first, there were more years of knowing how to utilize the console by the time OoT dropped. But overall, Final Fantasy's leap into the future is what I was most impressed by.

Looks super slick, and more comfortable for my big hands. I've been in the market for a new 6 button for the Mega SG, this looks like a winner and the price is right.

Depends on the game, depends on the player. The first Zelda will always be timeless to me, but I can also see why someone who started with Ocarina or Wind Waker would find it unappealing to wander around an overworld with the most basic map, having no indication of what walls can be bombed or bushes can be burned. Game Boy Games are an interesting case because there's some incredibly creative design working around the limitations of the system and lack of strict direction because longer portable games were a new thing. They are some of the purest gaming experiences and soundtracks for that reason - Link's Awakening especially.

Great piece. If you paid for your own console games in the 90s or lived with getting one new game year from your parents, you know how cheap and accessible gaming is today. And as you noted, how much more bang for the buck you get. An old RPG was one thing, but aot of full priced games back then could be completed in a day or two and that might be your one new game for year. Hard to call someone spoiled if they don't know what they don't know, but it does give some perspective on how this has become a far less premium hobby over the last two decades.

I generally prefer to buy, because I just don't have time to tinker with emulators and roms anymore, don't always feel like digging out the old hardware, and I have a very low tolerance for things like audio glitches and input delay. But I will for games that can't be easily played whether out of print or stuck in untranslation. Analogue's line is more or less perfect for my wants and I wish they weren't the only game in town because they're kind of a maddening company in a Nintendo-like way.

And I don't care to what degree what anyone else does on this matter so long as they aren't so annoyingly smug about it as emulating folk tend to be.

Definitely needed Legendary Axe, Cadash, and World Court Tennis for that Dragon Quest style mode. Maybe Sidearms too. But otherwise a solid list. Especially because you didn't include JJ and Jeff which weirdly snakes its way onto a lot of lists.

Gosh those memory cards were such junk. I had three official cards from Nintendo, one of the routinely wiped, one would randomly lose save files, one worked well for a year and died completely. I had a Performance card that worked decently but by then I also bought a dex drive and regularly backed my files up to a PC. I wish someone would make an updated version of that, since it uses a serial port, but this card looks like a nice alternative.

WATA is impressively scummy. Even after being thoroughly exposed by Karl Jobst they just keep acting like they're a legitimate operation. Not that the money launderers involved care, but I feel bad for anyone who wastes money having their games given a worthless grading.

That was a great read, thanks! I always love to know more about this game, it's such a unique gem with the alchemy system and The Dog. The soundtrack deserves praise as one of Jeremy Soule's early efforts, it really stood apart from other OSTs of the time. A shame the Mana pedigree held it back in more than one way since it really stands on its own as a great game but at least it has picked up love over time.

Hopefully Tommy sticks with Video Games Live again. He's a fantastic hype man and showrunner but he definitely can't do business.

I just want this to go away already, and for Tommy to get back to the Video Games Live series.

@Serpenterror had a very similar experience with my RG350. I can't believe how tolerant people are to crappy dpads and buttons and button placement these days. The Analogue pocket also has a lousy dpad and laughable shoulder buttons but no one wants to talk about that either. I can pick up my 20 year old OG GBA and immediately feel the difference.

I'm sure this appeals to someone. But definitely not me. I grew up in the 80s, and I have endless nostalgia for the Gameboy. But it's not like Gameboys up and vanished. I can pull mine out now with an Everdrive and dive into any random game from a massive library of classics. These games all look like a few minute time wasters. I get enough weird looks from being an adult playing with a handheld game console, I'd hate to be sitting in public fiddling with that crank on a kiddie yellow unit.

@the_shpydar I'd rather they just be up front and disclose that they received a review unit with affiliate links at the end as NL does, instead of everyone pretending that this sort of thing doesn't happen on every big gaming website.

Maybe Tommy can get back to focusing on Video Games Live now. We're past due for a new level.

I held a tape recorder to my game boy back in the day just so I could listen to the music of Belmont's Revenge on the bus. I can probably credit the guy for getting me into both metal and classical music, with New Messiah and Original Sin sounding like chiptune thrash and those impressive chipped renditions of Bach's Chromatic Fantasy & Debussy's Passepied.

This is a humblebrag review of beta hardware with immediate comments attempting to preclude people from having opinions in response because you're not allowed to have thoughts until you're $400 deep. Nothing brings out the especially smug & snide like emulation.

The lack of FPGA is a dealbreaker, especially at that price and with add-ons. I'm not paying a premium for potentially (and likely) flawed emulation, may as well just stick with a raspberry pi or pc.

@Deanster101 mother of god. This thing is such a scam.

All I'm really interested in with something like this is the emulation quality, and since the core unit is still system on a chip, it's doubtful this thing will be any better than a retropi or any number of non-fpga systems. I'm not paying $250 for brute force imperfect emulation and some novelty features.